Canon OEM vs Inktec Ink print result

[Serville]

You say you've finally got the colour you want, and I hope that's true. Unfortunately my experience tells me that you probably haven't got it quite right. You will still find photos that don't look right in some way. Have you tried printing a B&W photo yet?

The real problem is that printer response tends to be non-linear, that is you need different colour adjustments for different tones in the image. Reddish shadows with greenish highlights can't be corrected by tweaking CMY values in the driver. That's why we have printer profiles. A custom profile is not that expensive these days and it would have avoided your wasted time and paper, and above all your frustration.

Good luck anyway - I hope your colours are good because there's a lot of satisfaction in making a nice print yourself. But if you're still not happy, get a custom profile.

For now, I think the current profile is good enough for me.
There is no way my profile has the correct balance because I'm just using my eyes to judge, but I think it's acceptable for my daily need.
You're right when you say some photos still don't look right.
There is 1 particular photo that still gives me trouble even with my current setting (out of 10-12 photos I tested).
It's an old man standing behind a tree. The tree's brown color looks a little washed-out (compared to what I see in my LCD).
But the other 10 photos I printed look good & match quite well with my LCD.
So I just accepted the fact as is. I realize there is no way I can get perfect result.

BW photos is one of my main focus when I profiled this printer & paper.
I realize if grey is not grey, it means I messed up the balance too much.
Frankly I don't even know if my grey is perfect grey either, but at least it is grey enough for my eyes (instead of milky chocolate with other settings I tried).
With no adjustment, the inktec doesn't print grey correctly. It's always milky choco on Fuji , Canon paper, & other papers. I don't know why.
But now, after profiling, at least it prints grey color as I see it.

Here is the result after profiling.

http://imageshack.us/a/img42/797/inktecprofiledsmall.jpg

http://imageshack.us/a/img843/3453/inktecprofiled3small.jpg


NOTE: Btw, I just notice a problem with my scan.
It is in the 2nd pic where you see 3 women. In my scaned picture, you see the woman holding a cello wears a dark blue dress with ethnic pattern.
The real color is deep green. The chinese woman in the middle should wear a cyan dress (instead of blue in my scanned picture) , as you can see in the original image here :
http://s496.beta.photobucket.com/user/NetWain/media/Test/Calibration_Print_Adobe_RGB.jpg.html

The strange thing is, it only happens after scanning with Canoscan 4200F.
It seems to add magenta cast to the original picture during scanning.
I have resetted the settings in the scanner driver, but the result is the same.

My printed paper shows all the correct colors like you see in the original image.
Even in the BW baby photo, my printed photo shows actual grey color, but the scanned photo looks like a gray color with magenta cast.
Is it normal for a scanner to add magenta cast ?

 

[RogerB]

I'm glad that you have results that you are happy with. But, just to avoid confusion among less experienced forum members, you have not "profiled" your printer in the accepted sense. What you are doing is using the printer manufacturer's canned profile and applying your colour adjustments to the image. If it's working for you that's great, but it's not the same as using a custom profile.

Enjoy your printing anyway.

 

[inkoholic]

I can't help but notice the stunning print quality! Stunning in the way of not having any horizontal lines due to printhead clogging or other problems. It all looks very clean. Particularly because it's an IP3500. I have an MP610 which in theory should outperform the 3500, but your print is way better than mine would have looked. My printhead has some problems and I'm still deciding if I should replace it. So I'm wondering about
-how old is your printer?
-how much pages have you printed?
-do you ever clean the printhead, manually or with the built-in cleaning cycle?
-are you still using the original printhead, or have you replaced it?
-is your nozzle check flawless?
-what print setting did you use for the photos?

Excuse me for the interrogation style questions, I'm just very curious

 

[The Hat]

I'm glad that you have results that you are happy with. But, just to avoid confusion among less experienced forum members, you have not "profiled" your printer in the accepted sense. What you are doing is using the printer manufacturer's canned profile and applying your colour adjustments to the image. If it's working for you that's great, but it's not the same as using a custom profile.

Enjoy your printing anyway.

If Serville didnt profile his printer for his photos then can you explain what he did do
because I am totally confused never mind the less experienced members?

 

[turbguy]

A "profile" is a 3 (or more) dimensional mathematical map of color desired vs specific ink combination requirements to produce that color on a specific substrate. This map is NOT linear across all axes, but has bumps and hills throughout. What the printer driver adjustments do is allow you to change ink spraying in a linear fashion to make tweaks, but this in no way duplicates the bumps, hills, and curves built into a real profile. Some colrs are "good", others are not.

 

[RogerB]

As turbguy says, it's a mathematical map; and the points making up that map can only be determined by printing a large number (hundreds or thousands) of different colours using your particular printer/ink/paper and measuring those printed colours with appropriate hardware. The measurements are used to create the profile. It's really not that difficult to do if you have the right hardware and software and the improvement with third-party inks can be startling. Of course the hardware+software can be expensive, hence the large number of people offering profiling services to people who need only one or two profiles.

One thing is certain - you can't generate a real profile with your eyeballs.......

 

[mikling]

Profiling is really just a set of adjustments. So Hat can be correct in stating that the adjustment setup once stored in a repeatable fashion is in fact a profile. However, what more advanced users of printing equipment generally refer to as profiles are ICC profiles for printers and as stated are more detailed. Now just to give you an idea of what is happening in ALL color equipment is that the color output changes between models and brands and your experience with the scanner is also a reminder that professional scanners need to be profiled as well. Even the TV you watch should really be profiled if you want accurate and realistic color.

Just imagine this, when ink hits paper, the ink and its makeup will react differently to different papers. So even when the printer is given instructions to print, the actual viewed output will be different with different ink paper combinations. How the paper reacts and how the ink reacts are not always predictable. So how do we correct the shifts between different papers. The slider that has been used applies more or less of a certain color across the complete spectrum of when it is used. So if we tell it with the silder to output 10% more, it will do so for ALL instances that the printer is told to use that color. As the user has discovered there are certain areas where this correction is good and when the amount applied might be too much or too little. Wouldn't it be good if we had an intelligent slider? One that would shift back and forth depending on the color that was printed? That would be ideal. So that essentially is what the ICC profile does but does it in reverse.

Reverse???? Yes. A program changes the image that is being sent. It adjusts the image. You see, the printer still prints the way it wants to. So what the smart photo printing software does is this. Aha! I know what you're going to do printer. So I'm going to trick you to print the correct color that should come out by sending you the wrong color.!!!! I will adjust the colors I send you. Sucker! The stupid printer just prints the way it normally does not knowing what is happening. This is color managed software. It actually adjusts the image sent to the printer knowing that the printer is going to do a certain thing. It's trickery! Yes. ..but it works. Color managed software uses ICC profiles as the set of adjustments to be made. Software such as Photoshop, Lightroom, Aperture, ACDSee, Qimage and many others are able to do this. Entry level software normally cannot perform this.

I made it sound simple. There is a lot of mathematics involved... and the mathematics behind it varies depending on which software is used to create the instructions or trickery... and this is also constantly changing ( improving) as well.
Add to this, the fact that printers cannot print all colors. So something must be done to compensate for this. What is done can also affect the colors it can print. The user can choose the compromise.

Finally, it sounds like you can make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. Well, the truth is the better the ink paper match to what the printer was designed for the less trickery is required and the better the result. So for those thinking that color management solves everything with using third party inks are going to be somewhat disappointed. The more different colors of inks that are used on the printer, the more potential for mismatch and the more problems that the mathematics must overcome... and it cannot overcome all. In summary, unless you are prepared to spend many hours and lots of effort learning about color management and the technical details, you are better off to find inks that match the original as closely as possible. Whatever results you achieve with that combination can further be improved with color management as long as you're prepared for the added complication and time for learning how to apply it and acquire the software to use it.

 

[rodbam]

The eyes are the worst judge as to what is the correct colours that's why we say you can't profile a printer by eye. I suppose you can call doing what The Hat said a profile but that profile will be very unreliable depending on the different light through the day & what room lights might be on. The brain makes adjustments all the time depending on what colour light we are in so it looks normal at the time so how can we judge a colour by eye when the brain is adjusting to make it look normal.

 

[The Hat]

I am sorry guys but I have to take the opposite point of view here, if we cant decide (Judge) a colour for ourselves
and by our own eyes then theres no point in the art of profiling whatsoever.

That said I have been printing for a life time now and have always used my eyes as my best judgement
as to whether a colour is correct or wrong more so when using a densitometer or any other electronic device,
in the end the eyes must be the final arbitrator.

There are mutable colour setting in Photo Shop and I only use a couple of them
including one called Pantone Colours which I bet practical nobody has ever even tried.

Dedicated colour profiling takes (A lot) of time and can only be done by sheer persistence and patience
and it doesnt necessarily need the help of any electronic device either
but it does need a pretty good software colour editor. (Money well spent)

An electronic colour profiling device work perfectly well when you have a special need for your monitor scanner, and printer to sing from the same hymen,
but printing the same image to different paper surfaces can cause a completely different outcome and it often does.

By using software colour adjustments (management) you have done the donkey work yourself so re-profiling
for another type of paper is somewhat easier because of the experience youve gained.

Mikling put it down to trickery if thats what its to be called but yes thats it in a nutshell by manipulating the printer
to produce a prescribed set of colours that you require but not necessarily with the correct usual information.

Theres no point in getting an expensive printer coupled with a high priced profiling devise and software the best quality papers,
your most precious photos and then letting it all down by using less than the best quality inks
(Dye or pigment) but it doesnt have to be OEM ink, there is alternatives..

 

[RogerB]

Dear Hat - I think you are doing a disservice to the printing community by pushing colour management into the subjective, perhaps to the fringes of the mystic realm. I agree wholeheartedly that the final test is "does the print look right". However, I cannot agree that our eyes are very useful for judging colour in any absolute sense for calibrating or profiling an output device such as a printer. Our visual systems have evolved to allow us to make the best sense of the world around us, not to be able to "measure" colour or even lightness. There are innumerable optical illusions that demonstrate the quirks of our visual system. Like this one:

The inner square on the right is obviously darker, and maybe even a bit smaller, than the one on the left - except of course that it isn't. They are exactly the same. Trivial yes, but just one of many ways in which we can't trust our "eyes" to assess colour/lightness.

As for colour profiling taking a lot of time and patience, I couldn't disagree more. Put any competent person in a room with a printer, two A4 sheets of paper and a decent spectrophotometer system and they can produce a colour profile in 30 minutes, and that includes printing the targets. I guarantee that 99 times out of 100, the profile will give better results than a week of trial and error eyeballing. Yes, you need to print from software that is colour managed, but Photoshop, Lightroom, Elements and many other editing programs can do this. Printing with colour management is not particularly difficult, once you have a decent profile.

I agree completely with mikling that better inks will generally give better colours. I have come across a few printer/ink/paper combinations (usually cheap ink and paper) that would never give acceptable photo prints, but the profiling process has always told me this without needing to make a print. Conversely, analysis of a profile for a good printer/ink/paper combination tells you that the results will be good, again without making a print. You can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, but you can usually make a pretty decent pigskin wallet which would do the job for most people.

I accept that colour management can be a mystery to many. What I can't accept is that there is some magic involved in getting a printer to produce accurate colour. The technology is there and it works. We should be encouraging people to use it so that they can edit their photos (on their calibrated monitors) then hit the "Print" button knowing that the printed image will be very close to the image on the monitor. Unless of course there is some kind of innate masochism in inkjet printer owners......